Common Sense Evaluation

This archived AP article says Paul Manafort and Rick Gates secretly funneled money to The Podesta Group and hired them to lobby on behalf of Ukrainians. If Manafort and Gates are guilty of not registering as foreign agents and money laundering, so are Tony and John Podesta!!

Question of the day: Did Manafort use the Podesta Group to route pro-Russian funds to the Clintons in order to secure the Uranium One deal?

Here is a written transcription of Tucker Carlson’s detailed account of allegations by an informant who claimed to have inside knowledge.

The allegations in his report, if true, indicate that Manafort allegedly was:
1) Frequently present at the Podesta Group’s offices during 2012-2014
2) A direct conduit for funneling Eastern European and Russian funds into the Podesta Group in order to, among other things, secure the Clintons’ assistance in regard to Uranium One..

This is different from way Manafort was described during August 2016. Back in Aug. 2016, the AP claimed that Manafort and Gates “directed” the activities of the Podesta group on behalf of a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party. But Carlson’s report, if correct, indicates a much closer relationship.

Covert influence campaign

Under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, people who lobby on behalf of foreign political leaders or political parties must provide detailed reports about their actions to the Justice Department. A violation is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

The emails illustrate how Gates worked with Mercury and the Podesta Group on behalf of Ukrainian political leaders. None of the firms, nor Manafort or Gates, disclosed their work to the Justice Department counterespionage division responsible for tracking the lobbying of foreign governments.

“There is no question that Gates and Manafort should have registered along with the lobbying firms,” said Joseph Sandler of Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock, a Democratic-leaning Washington law firm that advises Republican and Democratic lobbyists.

Manafort and Gates have said that they did not disclose their activities to the Justice Department because they did not oversee lobbying efforts and merely introduced the Washington firms to a Brussels-based nonprofit, the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, which they said ran the project. The center paid Mercury and the Podesta Group a combined $2.2 million over roughly two years.

The emails appear to contradict the assertion that the nonprofit’s lobbying campaign operated independently from Manafort’s firm.
In papers filed in the U.S. Senate, Mercury and the Podesta Group listed the European nonprofit as an independent, nonpolitical client. The firms said the center stated in writing that it was not aligned with any foreign political entity.

The 1938 U.S. foreign agents law is intended to track efforts of foreign government’s unofficial operatives in the United States.

Political consultants are generally leery of registering under it, because their reputations can suffer once they are on record as accepting money to advocate the interests of foreign governments — especially if those interests conflict with America’s. Moreover, registering under the law would have required Gates, Manafort or the lobbying firms to disclose the specifics of their lobbying work and their efforts to sway public opinion through media outreach.

Ina Kirsch, who runs the European nonprofit, has said the group’s work was independent and its goal was to bring Ukraine into the fold of Europe. The center has declined for years to reveal specific sources of its funding.

Gates confirmed to the AP previously that he was working for Ukraine’s ruling party, the Party of Regions, at the time.

Here’s The Indictment Against Paul Manafort And Rick Gates (It had nothing to do with Manafort’s work on the Trump campaign):

Manafort-gates Indictment Filed and Redacted by Chuck Ross on Scribd